Love Song for a Scientist
by Ted Sadler
Summary: What you can understand is science. What you can't is magic.
1. Elementary

Love Song for a Scientist  
  
by Ted Sadler  
  
© Copyright 2004  
  
SG-1 belongs to them, not to me. The song belongs to a genius named Tom Lehrer. Buy his records if you want to learn more.  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXX  
  
Sam wanted the evening to end, and yet to never end. She and Pete Shanahan sat at a table for four, with Daniel Jackson and his fiancée Sarah. It was near to the top table, but sufficiently far back that they were out of the spotlights.  
  
The guest of honour sat between General George Hammond (Ret'd.) and Doctor Elizabeth Weir, former Head of the SGC. The current, retiring CO, General Jack O'Neill seemed to be enjoying their company, thought Sam enviously. This was *so* not the way she had envisaged it was going to be.  
  
She still liked Pete after a fashion, but had no-one to blame but herself for the fact that her continuing on-off relationship with him had driven away the man she really loved. *He* hadn't even looked their way during his retirement dinner, and that Weir woman seemed to be paying more than polite attention to him, which he in turn seemed to be lapping up. But Pete was an episode coming to an end, Jack or no Jack in her life. She wasn't looking forward to their conversation tomorrow, when she knew she was going to 'Dear John' him. And after tomorrow – no Pete, no fishing trip, no nothing except a career that had once meant everything, and was now half a life, despite the dazzling multi-planetary science that lay before her.  
  
When the evening ended, she would have seen the last of *him*. So she didn't want it to pass. But her consort's never-ending attempts to inject humour and flattery into their conversation were irritating, and she had caught Daniel's look of disdain earlier on, and had blushed with embarrassment. How come *his* jokes had never got on her nerves?"  
  
The double Armagnac she had taken as a liqueur after the meal should see her through the speeches, she thought, so she ordered another just in case Jack's last words might upset her. Pete didn't approve, and Daniel didn't care, so she ordered a third to spite them all and take away any residual sadness that might be 'inappropriate' at the end of the evening. God, how she hated that word. But all that alcoholic power couldn't take away the tension that built up in her when he rose to make his farewell speech.  
  
The conversation died away and he began.  
  
"Ladies and Gentlemen, Honoured guests, Officers and Men of the SGC, and Daniel."  
  
"Thanks, Jack!" cried Dr. Jackson, high on the effects of sherry trifle.  
  
"It has been an honour to serve." stated Jack, his voice echoing around the room. "That goes for every single man and woman I've had the pleasure to know in the SGC." A round of applause came and went.  
  
"Now, I know that you've got a good betting pool going on the length of my speech tonight." Laughter ensued, and Jack looked straight at Lou Ferretti. "Well, Major, I've got a surprise for you. There will be no winner tonight! That pool of money you're sitting on is going straight to charity, right?"  
  
Ferretti looked back in surprise. "Right?" repeated Jack, grinning evilly at him. The Major nodded in compliance. "Ex – cell – ent!" cried Jack, to a brief round of applause.  
  
"Because the speech part ends in the next thirty seconds!" said Jack, to everyone's astonishment. "Instead, I have taken the advice of General Hammond and spared you all!" More laughter, but a look of disbelief on Sam's face.  
  
Jack looked round the audience until he spied Sergeant Walter Davis. "Walter! Your assistance, please." Davis stood up on cue, and walked proudly onto the dais, taking his seat in front of the piano situated at behind the top table. He pulled back his cuffs and poised his hands above the keys, looking to Jack for a sign.  
  
When the murmur of astonishment in the crowd died down, Jack strode over to the piano and stood by a microphone on a stand. "I don't believe this!" Sam heard Daniel exclaim. She merely sat stunned.  
  
"This is for my favourite scientist." Jack stated. "It's adapted from the Gilbert and Sullivan song about senior ranks. Walter, if you please."  
  
Davis began the familiar introduction to 'I am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General', and Jack started right on cue, his voice loud and clear through the address system..  
  
"There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,  
  
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,  
  
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,  
  
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium."  
  
A gasp went up from the room as he paused for breath and Walter added the extra line of music. Jack ploughed straight on.  
  
"Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium,  
  
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium,  
  
And gold, protactinium and indium and gallium,  
  
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium."  
  
At the next piano break, there was a definite current of laughter sweeping the room, and all Sam could do was stare open-mouthed at him.  
  
"There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium,  
  
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium,  
  
And strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,  
  
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium."  
  
Once more Jack paused for breath as Davis did his stuff, before launching into the next stanza.  
  
"There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium,  
  
And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium,  
  
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,  
  
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium."  
  
By now some of the more scientific members of the audience were beginning to clap in time to the music.  
  
"And lead, praseodymium, and platinum, plutonium,  
  
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium,  
  
And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium,  
  
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium."  
  
Jack played to the gallery, pretending to be exhausted as he took his next deep breath.  
  
"There's sulfur, californium, and fermium, berkelium,  
  
And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium,  
  
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc, and rhodium,  
  
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin, and sodium."  
  
He paused but the clapping continued for a few seconds. When it had died down, he launched into the final couplet.  
  
"These are the only ones of which the news has come to Har - vard,  
  
And there may be many others, but they haven't been disc – a - vard."  
  
The whole audience erupted into applause and wild cheering. Sam joined in, but she was the only one who had tears streaming down her face as she stood clapping. Suddenly she realised that he was looking straight at her, a wry smile across his face. She stared back, and watched in awe as he mimicked the action of casting a rod.  
  
Suddenly, the next day was going to be worth looking forward to.  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXX  
  
Author's note: if you want to see and hear this song, try a web search on 'Tom Lehrer' and look out for his song 'The Elements'. There's a brilliant presentation of it on the privatehand.com website, in the Flash Animation section. 


	2. Forgotten Elements

Chapter 2 – Forgotten Elements  
  
"Driver, I didn't ask for your obshervations on my shtate of health." Sam slurred as she fumbled in her purse for a twenty, passing it to him and not waiting for change. "I jusht..... I jusht got rid of the wrong life to make things right again. So there."  
  
The cool night air hit her full in the face as she got out of the cab, not exactly sobering her up, but adding a sudden steadiness to her gait that hadn't been there when she had left her house to get into the cab. The driver sighed deeply, shaking his head as he drove off into the night. 'Some tough broad.' was the tone of his thoughts.  
  
Sam strode fearlessly up to Jack's front door and found the bell push at the third attempt. When no response came after six seconds – six whole seconds, she'd counted them – she placed her finger back on the button and leaned on it. She could hear the chimes sounding continuously inside, and when she moved her weight so that her finger slid off and on again, the chimes responded by repeating much faster. Amused by this remote-controlled acceleration of the music, she wiggled her finger about and snorted with amusement as the simple instrument performed the kind of gymnastics it had never been designed for.  
  
Still no response. It was obviously time for military cunning, as befitted a secret ops team leader. She grasped the heavy black iron knocker and slammed it against its base plate several times. "O'Neill! General, Sir!" she shouted. "I know you're in there!" Another few knocks. "Jack! Come out and get a life! You know you want to!" And another dose of the chimes to shake him up a bit.  
  
She noticed a light come on in the neighbouring house and a face appear from behind lifted curtains. "What are you looking at?" she hollered, swaying slightly.  
  
She turned around to batter the door knocker again but stepped back in shock as she saw her objective for the evening standing there smirking at her. The dress shirt that she thought had looked so smart earlier in the evening was open almost to the waist, his cuffs undone. Looking down, she noticed the hole in his right sock and stared at it uncomprehendingly. "I don't do sock darning, Jack." she said, to her own surprise.  
  
"Neither do I." he said calmly, motioning for her to enter. He stood aside as she swept in, eyeing the decor as though she were a potential house buyer. She stopped suddenly in the hall and turned to face him.  
  
"You forgot lawrencium." she stated, sounding very much like a wife admonishing her husband over an unremembered anniversary card.  
  
"Really?" smiled Jack, not quite able to believe that the one thing he had spent all those evenings practising to bring about was now unfolding before him.  
  
Sam shrugged her coat off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor unnoticed. She walked forward and stood in front of him, staring into his eyes. He felt the warmth of her across the twelve inches that separated their faces. She swayed forward slightly and quite naturally (of course) placed her hands on his shoulders, just to steady herself. Yeah, right.  
  
"And rutherfordium." she breathed in a softer voice, still staring until her eyes somehow descended to look at his mouth.  
  
Jack naturally held both his hands on her waist to steady her, just in case her tightening grip on his shoulders wasn't enough.  
  
"How could I forget?" he whispered back.  
  
She thought that she would just lightly brush his lips with hers, but somehow the force with which she crushed her face against his, pulling on the back of his neck with one arm and squeezing his body against hers with the other, denied that idea any existence beyond a fraction of a second. She did however pull far enough away to murmur, "Dubnium as well."  
  
"Damned transition elements." he retorted at close quarters. "Can't get your tongue round them." Now there was a distracting thought.  
  
It must have been around three minutes later when she added "Seaborgium." It was becoming difficult to remember the more modern parts of the Periodic Table *and* concentrate on pulling his clothes off at the same time.  
  
"Were you going to mention bohrium?" asked Jack as they revelled in the feel of each other in almost exactly the way that both of them had fantasised about for so many years.  
  
Slightly trembling knees and a terrible draught of cold air from somewhere reminded them both suddenly that there had to be a better way of completing their elementary exploration than standing almost naked in the hall. They stumbled towards his bedroom and fell together onto the warm, inviting cover, still kissing passionately.  
  
As they made love, frantically at first before calm, deep passion set in, Jack almost missed "hassium" and "meitnerium" spilling from her lips amidst the groans of pleasure. Any lesser-educated man might have thought they were names of other loves, and perhaps in a strange way they were to this enigmatic scientist, he thought idly as they lay clinging to each other after the earth-moving moment.  
  
"You're still wearing your socks!" she exclaimed just as he was relaxing again. "That hole is staring at me!"  
  
"Well, you could mend it if it upsets you that much." he teased.  
  
An inspirational way of getting out of that ridiculous request occurred to her. "Only if you can name the next element." she challenged him.  
  
"Darmstadtium."  
  
"Damn!"  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXX 


	3. Nothing to Worry About

Chapter 3 – Nothing to Worry About  
  
'Meet us at the school at 18:30. Nothing to worry about.' was all that her husband's cryptic, scrappy note had said, on a scrappy piece of paper obviously torn from the kids' scribbling pad. Crafted in his uniquely scrappy style. She realised that she just had time to change out of her work clothes before setting straight off again but she would be going hungry until they all got back.  
  
'That's...... scrappy.' thought Sam, tearing off the tape strip attaching the note to the inside of their front door, bringing yet another strip of paint with it. She no longer considered it necessary to worry that some crisis had befallen the two focal points of both their lives, currently aged five and seven. She had learned within eighteen months of marriage that Jack's definition of *nothing to worry about* included anything and everything that didn't mean calling for the doctor or at worst a hospital visit, like the time when Jonathan Daniel had disturbed a wasps nest.  
  
Although it was at times like having three kids in their home, she was immensely glad to have a sixty-year old house-husband whose main goal seemed to be to make up for a near-lifetime of suffering and loss, drawing in everyone around to jump on his personal bandwagon of exploration, fulfilment and sheer enjoyment. Kids' parties at their house, attracting as they did both neighbours' children and school pals, had become the stuff of mini-legend in their community, and both their house and garden had that 'lived-in' look of comfort and wear that would forever keep them off the pages of Good Housekeeping magazine. Clean and comfortable – yes, but *tidy* and *stylishly-decorated* were not the words that sprang to mind.  
  
Jack's new-found lifestyle, in particular his refusal to allow others to dote on the real or imagined downsides of their lives, had made for an atmosphere that Sam loved to come home to, so much so that she rarely pulled late evenings in the SGC labs any more. Well, only when an emergency dictated it. She had even given up on the pretence of bringing work home, only to somehow not find the time to do it – a sure sign of workplace stress, someone had told her.  
  
Sam pulled up alongside their family SUV in the school car park and after flipping down the parking stand bracket with the toe of her boot, took off her crash helmet, re-buckling the chin strap so that it could hang from the handlebars of her Honda Fireblade motorcycle. Unzipping her red and black leather jacket and shaking out her hair, she followed the well-known path to the Principal's office, cursing Jack for making her forget the woman's real name for the moment – it certainly wasn't Skinner. Carpenter? Smith? Voronenko? No, that wasn't it. A colour! Yes, that was it. But which one? Never mind, it would come to her in time.  
  
The row of faces that greeted her in the room gave her the usual sense of déjà vu, and she sighed inwardly. Jonathan and Gracie O'Neill both wore genuine smiles of welcome at seeing her, the little girl rushing across to be lifted up in a hug. Her son called out a greeting but was entering the phase where boys weren't seen to be doing hugs in public – that would be later back at home. Their teacher Mrs. Abramovich merely stared in the disapproving way that class teachers sometimes do when confronted with a Hell's Angel in their own domain, while Prinicpal..... Grey? Black? White? Think, Sam! Colours of the rainbow? Richard-Of-York-Gained-Battles-In-Vain. Red? No. Orange? Yellow? Unlikely. Green? Promising! Mrs. Green! Yes, that was it..... No it wasn't, she remembered that much. Blue, Indigo, Violet? Don't be silly, Sam.  
  
Her eyes flicked across momentarily to Mr. 'Butter-wouldn't melt' at the back while she stayed facing and smiling at the still-anonymous school head and observed Jack's finger pointing to his shoe, as he sat with his left ankle resting on his right knee.  
  
"Principal Brown!" she eventually managed to say, just before the warmth of her smile was replaced by the look of a frightened rabbit.  
  
"Tann. That's *Tann*, Mrs. O'Neill." replied the woman with a resigned tone to her voice. Sam blushed slightly, noticing Jack's innocent smile being replaced by the faintest trace of a smirk. Forget that now, Sam, he'll be paying for it later.  
  
"Not *Skinner*, as your delinquent teenager of a husband has managed to convince so many in this establishment." continued Mrs. Tann. However Sam couldn't help but notice that her frosty glare in his direction just failed to conceal the warmth in the woman's eyes, and she would be looking out for her at the next parent – teacher social evening. His faint smirk was replaced by an innocent smile. Unfortunately Sam's threats of withdrawn bedroom privileges were rarely matched by her actions, so she let it go. Again. 'Nothing to worry about'.  
  
"Sorry." said Sam. "So, I got Jack's note to be here, but other than that I have no idea. Is there a problem?"  
  
"I'm not sure." replied the Principal. "Mrs. Abramovich has spoken of her concerns about the way in which your children's knowledge seems to be developing, and we felt it best to discuss it with you."  
  
Sam gently took hold of Gracie's hand to stop her daughter picking at the metal studs that decorated her biker jacket, and carried her over to sit beside her husband, who had in the meantime fielded their son and sat him on his knee.  
  
"What seems to be the trouble?" asked Sam, looking at Mrs. Abramovich. "Are they struggling to keep up with the curriculum?"  
  
"Oh no." replied the teacher. "In many respects they are at the same level as many pupils. It's just that, well, how can I put this?" She paused and looked Jack squarely in the eye. "I believe that I am correct in stating that you are retired, Mr. O'Neill, and that you run the household while your wife is at work?"  
  
"Yes, that's right." Jack replied. "Best time of my life."  
  
"Quite." said Mrs. Abramovich, her tone dismissing the notion of 'fun' as irrelevant in domestic matters. "Mr. O'Neill, are your children under your personal supervision when they are not at school and your wife is at work?"  
  
"Most of the time, yes." said Jack, for whom this interrogation held no threat whatsoever, considering his past. "Except when they're playing at a neighbour's house and I know that someone is looking out for them."  
  
"And how do you pass most of your time with them?" continued the teacher, her eyebrows arched in expectation of an answer she could disapprove of.  
  
"Tell her, Jonathan." replied Jack, grinning at his son.  
  
"We play games!" cried their son, grinning widely. "Or go exploring with Daddy." He laboured over the word 'exploring', causing Sam to break into a smile of her own.  
  
"Sploring!" repeated Gracie. "Daddy knows nice 'sploring places."  
  
"Oh?" said Mrs. Abramovich in surprise. "But what about giving them lessons yourself?"  
  
"What do you mean?" asked Sam.  
  
"Well," Mrs. A continued, "in certain areas, they both seem to have knowledge of words and concepts that are far in advance of children their age. Not necessarily a deep understanding, but an awareness that is surprising, to say the least. I am concerned that you may be in danger of cramming their heads with irrelevant facts."  
  
"How do you mean?" asked Sam, intrigued rather than worried by this statement.  
  
The teacher turned to Jonathan. "Jonathan, how many different kinds of atoms are there?"  
  
O'Neill Junior smiled, happy that he knew the answer. "One hundred and twenty six!"  
  
Sam threw back her head and laughed, knowing how many times she and Jack had sung the song in front of their children, the song that had brought them finally together. They had continued to make up verses for each new element that had been discovered since it was written, and their offspring had quite naturally picked up and imitated some of the interesting-sounding names of elements – without understanding them, of course. But it was a point of pride in their household to keep track of these scientific discoveries, and to keep the tally on the children's 'writing wall' in their room.  
  
"The fact that he recognises the word 'atom' is remarkable enough." said the teacher. "But look here." She produced a sheet of paper covered mostly in dark blue paint, with a recognisable splash of white across the centre. "This is from Grace's art class yesterday. Gracie, what is this picture?"  
  
"Milky Way!" their daughter laughed, bouncing up and down in Sam's arms.  
  
Sam looked more closely and saw the distinct spiral shape, caught beautifully by her daughter's use of white. But the item that drew her attention was the arrow that Grace had drawn on it, pointing to a spot about two-thirds of the way from the centre to the edge of the white shape. Above it she had written 'grace' in blocky paintbrush writing.  
  
"Where's that, Gracie?" asked Mrs. Abramovich.  
  
"Our house!" responded the delighted child.  
  
"You see?" said the teacher. "Mr. O'Neill, why are you filling their heads with stuff like this at such an early age? It could be detrimental......"  
  
"Is that why you brought us out here?" Sam interrupted. "Because frankly, I can't see the problem."  
  
"As their mother....." was as far as Mrs. Abramovich got.  
  
"Jack, have you been teaching them a new song?" Sam continued. "Which one is it this time?"  
  
"Well, it was going to be a surprise for you, wasn't it, kids?" said Jack. They nodded their affirmation.  
  
In the background, they suddenly heard Mrs. Tann's snort of amusement as she threw her head back and laughed. "I know the one!" she cried. "Monty Python's 'The Meaning of Life' is one of my favourites too, Mr. O'Neill." To their surprise, she rose and beckoned them to follow her.  
  
She walked straight into the music room and over to an upright piano, seating herself in front of the keys. "Mr. O'Neill – Jack, may I call you?" He nodded. "Now don't disappoint, children. You can sing this with Daddy now, can't you?" Without waiting, she started the introduction as Jack crouched down, holding hands with his two children.  
  
Sam stood back with Mrs. Abramovich as her husband led the way, with Jonathan joining in for most of it, and Gracie shouting out the just the words that she liked the sounds of best. The Von Trapp's they weren't, but a place in the end-of-year school concert would be hard to evade.  
  
"Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving,  
  
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour...  
  
That's orbiting at ninety miles a second, so it's reckoned,  
  
The sun that is the source of all our power.  
  
The sun and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,  
  
Are moving at a million miles a day  
  
In an outer spiral-arm at forty thousand miles an hour  
  
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way.  
  
xx  
  
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars,  
  
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.  
  
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,  
  
But out by us it's just three thousand light years wide.  
  
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point,  
  
We go round every two hundred million years.  
  
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions,  
  
In this amazing and expanding universe.  
  
xx  
  
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,  
  
In all of the directions it can whiz.  
  
As fast as it can go, that's the speed of light you know;  
  
Twelve million miles a minute, the fastest speed there is.  
  
So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure,  
  
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,  
  
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,  
  
'Cause there's bugger-all down back here on Earth!"  
  
xx  
  
The children were delighted by the applause that the adults broke into as they finished, and Gracie danced a little jig while Jonathan swung from his father's arm. Only Mrs. Abramovich looked stern, in contrast to Sam's glee.  
  
"Mr. O'Neill! We are doing our best to teach them metric units of measurement these days!"  
  
"Nothing to worry about." he replied as his wife hugged him.  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXX 


	4. Sick as a parrot

Chapter 4 – Sick as a Parrot

As altercations went, it was neither fit for the local TV station news nor worthy of police attention, but it made it into both spheres, much to the chagrin of both the principal combatants.

Well, maybe 'combatants' was too strong a word, but it didn't seem so at the time to the two police officers who had responded to the report of a disturbance at the sports ground behind the Colorado Springs Combined Forces Social Club. As they climbed out of their cruiser and looked across the field, a noisy throng was hiding the action by the sideline of the soccer pitch. Shouts of "Come on, Marine! Show her who's the pro!" and "Stick it to her, fly-girl!" and some slightly less savoury epithets indicated that things must at the very least be heated and personal.

The soccer game itself had come to a standstill, with both teams of ten to twelve-year old players standing somewhat aghast, some fascinated or a little frightened, others thrilled by the spectacle of their adults behaving in a way that they had been encouraged not to. Neither did the officers fail to notice a smaller group of adults standing a little away from the frenzied knot, clearly exchanging dollar bills as they cast frequent looks in the direction of the fight. The money disappeared rapidly from view as the group caught sight of the dark blue uniforms.

"Break it up now, folks!" shouted Officer DeLancy. "Break it up, I said!" but his words had little effect. Sergeant McAllister on the other hand knew how to get their attention. He merely drew his sidearm and fired a single shot straight into the air. Moses could not have parted the Red Sea with greater aplomb, and the crowd hushed instantly, turning and parting in just the way he had intended. Even the two mud-covered figures on the ground ceased their struggles, their arms and legs still locked in position around each other as they looked up in shock.

McAllister came to a stop looking down at them. "Ladies, if that is the correct term." he said calmly. "Let go of each other and get up now." He observed the sudden flush to the cheeks of both women, clearly visible through the dirt smeared amply over both. As reality rushed back in on the pair, they released their hold on each other and struggled upright. The sergeant held up his arm to indicate to the bystanders that they should stay back and allow the pair to rise by themselves, and not a soul amongst them moved. Twenty years of policing had given him that edge of instant presence and command of any crowds he came upon, and still silence reigned.

"Now who started this?" he asked.

To his surprise, both women stood suddenly to attention and stated firmly "I did, sergeant!"

Hiding the smirk that he knew would take away his aura of authority, McAllister observed "So, military, eh? Code of honour and all that?" As they continued to stand still, he added "I doubt that your commanding officer would be at all impressed by this display, especially as half your audience appears to be too young to serve in the forces just yet."

Some of the crowd began to speak as they thought that this was the appropriate time to begin their input into the proceedings, but once again McAllister showed his mastery. He raised his hand and said loudly "Let's have some order, now! I take it from your hairstyles that most of you here are in the military, either serving or retired, right?"

At the chorus of "Yes, Officer!" and "Yes, sergeant!" he turned around.

"And who would be the senior officer or officers present?" he enquired. He looked back and added "At ease, ladies. I'll be getting to you presently. Don't go away now."

Two figures approached from the group that had obviously been betting on the outcome of the wrestling match. They eyed each other silently as they walked and the crowd parted so that they could approach the officer.

"I'm Rear-Admiral Rabb of the Navy Judge Advocate General's office." said one.

"And I'm General Jack O'Neill, retired." added the other.

The look of surprise on McAllister's face disappeared as soon as it had arrived, and he still held the audience in his palm. "If this soccer match is still unfinished, I suggest that you get it started again." he said, waving at the crowd to disperse and do just that. "Gentlemen, ladies, I suggest that you come with us to the patrol car so that we can take down the details and hopefully sort this out without getting The Pentagon involved. They'd hate to be called away from their golf courses on a weekend now, wouldn't they?"

The silent party ambled away, with McAllister motioning silently to his junior partner that it was quite safe to take his hand away from his holstered sidearm. In the background, the referee's whistle sounded and by the time they had reached the car, the chorus of support from the families and friends supporting the two kids' teams was rising again.

By this time, the two fighters had begun to look quite sheepish, and both had quietly said the word "Sorry" to each other as they walked along. Behind them, the newly-promoted Rear-Admiral silently and surreptitiously passed a twenty dollar bill to the General (ret'd.), who with equal stealth pocketed it and briefly nodded his thanks.

"Officer, I'm sure we can settle this between ourselves without wasting your valuable time." Jack O'Neill started to say, but he knew a consummate professional when he met one, and got no further before McAllister responded.

"Oh, but it's no trouble, General O'Neill." he said with a sigh. "Someone called in the disturbance and it's our duty to at least complete the paperwork. I mean, supposing your two subordinates here...." He ignored the sharp looks from the women and continued "Shook hands now but decided to sue the hell out of each other later? Now where would I be without a report, now?" He turned to the muddy pair and took out his notebook with an accustomed flourish. "Names please ladies." he enquired as he looked at the blond one.

"O'Neill, Samantha!" she replied. "Colonel, United States Air Force, retired." McAllister's left eyebrow raised in a manner that seemed familiar to Sam.

On receiving his stare in turn, the brunette stated "Rabb, Sara! Colonel, United States Marine Corps, retired."

McAllister recorded these details and definitely did not manage to keep the smirk entirely off his face for a brief moment. "So....." he said in a considered, drawn-out way. "It's obvious that disciplinary action by your 'senior officers' is unlikely in this case. Not if they value their lives, that is. And especially since both had an active interest in the outcome of your little side-show rather than breaking it up straight away." Hostile glares were immediately directed at the two gamblers. "So it's down to me to make you realise that this is no way to demonstrate to children a need to control themselves in times of stress and high emotion. Are either of you by any chance descended from English soccer hooligans? Now how did this start? I'll hear from you first, Colonel Rabb."

A much-sobered woman replied. "Well, it was our sons. Our Craig was being, well, a little hard in the tackles he was making, but it's a competitive game, right? I will admit though, that he's big for his age and maybe he should have been a little more sporting at times. But the referee didn't see anything wrong with the way he took the ball off Colonel O'Neill's son....."

"Jonathan." interjected Sam.

"Jonathan." Sara repeated. "But the local supporters seemed to go wild at his decision..... Just like that!" she added as a roar and then a raucous, singing chant erupted from the crowd over at the game. The words were unmistakeable:

"We all agree! The referee is a wanker!"

McAllister smiled blissfully as he recalled his youth in Glasgow, where this had been mild stuff for his fellow Rangers supporters, especially when they were playing their hated town rivals, Glasgow Celtic. But that could not deter him from his duties now.

"So how did the fight start?" he asked.

"Well, Colonel O'Neill was standing nearby in the crowd, and after the referee had failed to come down on their side, every time that Craig got the ball, she and an English woman with her....."

"Sarah Jackson." Sam added, almost helpfully.

"Well, they both started another chant that all the local supporters seemed to catch onto pretty quickly. It was personal and my son was quite upset." Another roar and chorus from the crowd, louder than before, could not have been better timed for the purposes of the sergeant's note-taking.

"Who ate all the pies? Who ate all the pies? You fat bastard! You fat bastard! You ate all the pies!" rose into the air, accompanied by mass pointing of fingers at the latest offender on the field, who looked round in shock.

"That's the one." stated Sara. "OK, it wasn't always directed at my son, and they seem to have plenty of other little songs up their sleeves to intimidate their opponents. Well, we exchanged...... words. I informed her that I was a martial arts expert and she said I couldn't karate chop a bowl of Jell-O. Then, I don't recall how, push came to shove and the next thing, we were on the floor. After that, it's all a haze until you turned up." She turned to Sam. "I'm so sorry that it got like this."

Before Sam could reply, the sergeant asked "And does that tally with your version of the events, Colonel O'Neill?"

"Yes, pretty much." Sam replied. "I'm sorry too, Sara. I guess we both got caught up too much in the game."

"Unfortunately, that's not as uncommon as you might think among soccer moms these days." said McAllister. "But that excuses nothing. The language may be something that's on prime time every evening from seven, and sure the kids themselves use it all the time. But just think about whether you want to go down that road yourselves, ladies. It's what your husbands might call 'conduct unbecoming', if they were dealing with others in their units. Now shake hands, and we'll call it a day."

The would-be warriors shook hands and even stepped forward for a brief hug before turning their glare on their respective partners, who had both been trying to take steps backwards away from the scene.

"You drive, DeLancy." McAllister instructed as he opened the passenger door. "I'm still coming off a post-match high."

As the car pulled away, Sam froze her husband to the spot with a withering glare, and Harm felt unable to move either. "If you want to live, Jack, we'll settle for ten times what you bet on us. Split evenly between us, OK Sara?"

"And don't think you're not paying either, Harm." added her new friend. Silent spouses were a sign of their mastery of the situation.

"So, are you staying over in town tonight?" Sam asked as they started to move back towards the game.

"Yeah, we're booked in a place called 'Mountain View Motel' somewhere outside of town. It was all we could find." replied Sara.

"That's a dump." said Sam. "Why not come over after the game, get cleaned up and spend the night with us? It's no palace, but it'll give Craig and Jonathan a chance to get over whatever might remain between them. You can meet our daughter Grace as well. She's into hockey like her dad. She doesn't share our passion for soccer, more's the pity. And since our 'commanding officers' seem to be getting on so well, they can pay for a meal delivery."

"And a new David Beckham shirt for you." added Sara. "And a new Ronaldo one for me."

But they couldn't see the contented grins that two of the happiest men in the world were exchanging as they walked ahead of their wives.

"We all agree! The referee is a ......" drifted in again from the game.

It did, however, make the "And finally....." slot on the local TV evening newscast, but fortunately the amateur video had been shot from such a distance that the participants could not be identified. Matters would change on the Monday morning when the kids were back in school though.

XXXXXXXXXXXX


	5. It's a Kind of Magic

Chapter 5 – It's a Kind of Magic

The interwoven gold, red and black threads and loops around the filigree metal hook looked nothing like a fly to anyone – not even to a fish. Except of course, to another fisherman, and even then only one who found it a fascinating enough pastime to want to live and stay at the cutting edge of their art. As for the fish – well, the hypnotic way it could move, thanks to the combined intricacies of currents, eddies and the deft wrist movement of the fly fisher conveyed another altogether irresistible message.

Jack O'Neill sighed and gently placed his creation on the desk in front of him, deliberately positioning it alongside others in the shaft of sunlight that angled across the glass-topped surface for the purposes of admiration. He lifted his glasses to sit on the top of his head and without looking round, reached for the half-empty beer bottle at the side but took only a small sip before grimacing at its warmth and lack of fizz, placing it immediately back down. Had it really been so long since he had said goodbye to Sam that morning and sat down in their back-room den to continue preparations for the first family visit of the summer to Minnesota? And their den it definitely was, being the only room of the house not dominated by the possessions, lifestyle, sounds and passing presence of the next generation of teenaged O'Neill's. Years ago Sam had found and brought home the antique railroad notice that adorned the door, proclaiming that 'This closet is for the use of passengers only. Workmen, cabmen, fishporters and idlers are not permitted to use it. By Order of The Management, CRR of NJ.' For a reason that neither parent understood, both Jonathan and Gracie respected the exclusion rule – possibly the only household one that they did.

In truth, Jack felt that his life could not really get much better than it did on a regular basis these days. That he was in love with his wife more and more as the months and years passed went without saying, combined with his genuine amazement that she was no less dependent on him in turn. The constant challenges that their children presented made sure that periods of peace, quiet and recreation will still welcome when they could be taken.

Sam was absorbed in her role as Science Administrator at the SGC (still masquerading as radar telemetry to all others, including their offspring). Although a civilian since her retirement from the Air Force a few years back, Jack knew that she pushed beyond the job's strict boundaries and somehow found her way off-world from time to time, all in the name of 'on-site training' or 'sample collection' or even 'instrument calibration' as the opportunity arose. Unlike the old days however, she restricted her work hours sufficiently to spend regular time with those that she doted on: two kids who were pushing over a few boundaries themselves at home and school, and a husband whose duties and hobbies seemed to merge into one never-ending cascade of hesitant progress through disorder.

Jack mused once more over the events of the last few weeks.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Despite being fifteen years his junior, Sam was at long last opting out of a full-time role at the SGC, having nearly fallen into the trap of believing that she had to continue to lead from the front in all areas of her work, ranging from planetary exploration, sample-gathering and analytical work to administration. It had been Daniel Jackson, during one of his increasingly rare visits to Cheyenne Mountain, who had taken her aside and delivered the shock news that her subordinates and assistants were not only fitter and more agile than she now was, but also her failure to delegate adequately was holding back some of the brighter ones – all of whom were too in awe of her reputation and still-formidable abilities to actually broach the subject directly. Easy to miss noticing when she loved science and investigation as much as they did.

Jack recalled particularly the evening when she had arrived home earlier than usual in a daze, and had sat very quietly through dinner. Sensing that this situation had to be tackled head-on, he had without too much difficulty bribed Jonathan and his sister to go out to a neighbouring school-friend's house for a couple of hours. As soon as they had left, he led Sam to the lounge, clearing the kids' magazines, books, personal hi-fi's and items of clothing from the sofa with one scything movement of the arm, sat her down gently and lowered himself beside her, taking her hand in his.

"The beans, Carter." he had said gently. "No holding back. Spill!"

Some time passed before she had responded by grasping his hand in both of hers, leaning across to kiss his cheek. "I'm reliably informed that I'm getting old, dear." she had stated calmly. "And don't you dare deny it, Jack!"

His nonplussed expression had caused her to lean back and laugh out loud. He never even got to the "I'm the wrong person….." response out before she had continued.

"I'm retiring." came the bald statement. She had then interpreted his subsequent silence for acceptance and added "Daniel's right. I need to see the kids growing up more than the SGC needs me any more. And I need you, Jack. More than ever before, and more than anything else in the Galaxy. It'll probably take a month or two to come into effect but it's going down."

The sensible man needs no prompting to take on board such a situation and such an offer, and for once Jack had acted the part to perfection. In appreciation of his acquiescence and support, she had waited that night until she knew that Grace would be asleep and for Jonathan in his bedroom to be wrapped in the womb of Heavy Metal music played at eardrum-rattling level through his new hi-fi headphones. Wearing the dubiously-named 'Opium' perfume that she knew would do that little extra something for Jack, she had woken him when she entered their bedroom and had proceeded to give him the time of his life. All of which, she later explained to him, had been to build up her courage to hand in her resignation the following day.

"You sure this is going to be enough for you without all the doohickies?" had been his only question before they slept.

"No, but I am sure that you'll convince me."

"Good enough."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The patch of sunlight had moved off his work of art on the desktop while he had been lost in his reverie, and it took the slam of the front door to bring him fully into the present. He got up stiffly and walked through to the kitchen to find Grace rifling the contents of the refrigerator with no small degree of impatience. He was more surprised to see her taking out his wife's sacred store of chocolate-covered cookies ("They taste better when they're cold", Sam had explained some thirteen years previously. "It's a scientifically-proven fact.") and swing the door shut with a lot more force than was strictly necessary.

"I'll replace them!" she said gruffly without looking round at her father standing in the kitchen doorway. "So no snitching, OK Dad?"

He shrugged his shoulders briefly as she flounced passed him, and then followed her into the lounge. Grace picked up the TV remote and flopped onto the sofa as the set sprang to life. With a deep sigh she dropped the control onto the carpet and her hand dived into the packet of chocolate delights.

Jack sat down at the other end of the seat, picked up the control and the TV went back into hibernation. Grace didn't move, but continued to dip into the bag, crunching the contents as she stared ahead. Jack reached over and helped himself and still his daughter didn't react until the cookie bag was nearly empty, when she stopped him from trying to pull it away. Her silence ran out of steam a few moments later.

"Stupid science class! Stupid teacher! Stupid school!" she muttered.

"Geeks." Jack replied.

"Don't know anything!" she went on. "If it's not on the year course, it can't exist!"

"Nerds." he responded, still eyeing the biscuit bag.

"Stop agreeing with me!"

"OK"

"You're still doing it!"

"Am not."

Grace allowed her shoulders to slump, for once not wanting to play the verbal ping-pong game. She knew that her father would get her it out of her sooner or later, and later was not on her agenda right now.

"It's the science project, you know? The one where they said Mom wasn't to help this time." she explained. "Not only because that mini-fireball projector burnt a hole through the tabletop last year."

Jack's eyebrows rose. He'd been away for nearly three weeks a year back (courtesy of the Asgard) and had missed the occasion, having forgotten about it after his whole family had insisted that the school science week was no big deal and he hadn't missed anything. Really. Now however, the tiniest cloud of suspicion was forming that maybe, just maybe his wife's knowledge of the workings of alien energy weapons might have been somehow brought to bear on the occasion. Time for that later, though.

"And?" he persisted.

"So I thought I'd avoid the whole pyrotechnics thing this time round." Grace continued. "No crappy lava volcanoes or stuff like that. So I did something different based on math and metalwork."

"What, like a Chinese ring-puzzle?" asked Jack, becoming more intrigued as time went by. "A Moebius strip maybe, or a Klein bottle?"

"Uh? You know about those things, Dad?"

"Not as dumb as your Mom says." he grinned back. "Well?"

"I made a tesseract."

"A what?"

"Tesseract. A four-dimensional cube." stated Grace. Seeing the look of surprise, she added, as though to reassure him, "Not a very big one. It won't do clever stuff like linear displacement of solid objects because I haven't……"

"Stop right there, kid!" he said loudly, standing up and reaching for the cell phone in his shirt pocket. He pressed speed dial number one and waited a few seconds. "Sam, drop whatever you're doing and get home now. Yes, that's right. Yes, now. No, everyone's OK. Yes. Yes. No, the kids are fine, I'm fine, the dog's fine, the parrot's fine and it's not said 'that' word again. Are you ever going to forget that? It's just that we've got a grade 'A' situation developing. Kind of a foothold, in a funny sort of way. Thought you'd see that. Yes, see you in thirty. Bye. Oh, by the way, if you could stop off for some chocolate cookies on the way? OK, OK. I know. Yes, and you don't know how sorry we….. See you soon."

Jack turned back to his puzzled daughter.

"I take it that the teacher doesn't accept what you're offering?" he asked.

"No. He says it's art or craft, not science, because 'it's just a representation of an abstract concept and doesn't do anything'." she mimicked. "And even if I can apparently show it doing stuff then it'll just be a conjuring trick. He'll flunk me unless I can come up with something else in the next two weeks."

"Would a hand-held lightning generator do it?"

"Dad!" A pause. "Could we? I might accidentally zap….."

"Don't go there, Gracie."

"D'oh!"

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Sam strolled through the front door and walked through to the rear of the house, to find her family clustered round the small table on the back veranda, talking in low tones. They looked round as she pulled up short, as though surprised by her entrance.

"What's going on?" she asked, puzzled. "Your call made it sound like an emergency. Well, until the part about the cookies. Now I'm just intrigued."

"Well, it's a kind of slow emergency, dear." replied her husband. "Significant, but slow. Gracie, care to explain?"

The youngest O'Neill took her time and started with a phrase that she thought should be an essential part of the preamble.

"Jonathan helped me."

"Thanks, squirt." her older brother retorted. "Remind me to return the favour sometime."

Grace stared back at the three pairs of eyes focussed on her and cleared her throat.

"Imadeatesseractfortheschoolscienceproject." came out very quickly.

"A what?" said Sam, not believing what she thought she had heard.

"A tesseract." Grace repeated. "But like I told Dad, it doesn't work properly yet."

Jack stared at Sam's expression and said "Come on, Sam. Like you didn't have a hand in it!"

"I swear I haven't!" she retorted. "I would never….. Ah." She had at last noticed Jack's eyes giving her that look of inside knowledge. "You know about last year, then. But not this! Gracie – that's absolutely wonderful! Is this it?" Sam's gaze took in the black metal spindles delicately joined at the ends, forming a cube on a cube on a cube, each segment appearing to be at right angles to its neighbour, and yet not so. She half closed her eyes and looked at it out of focus, and thought that she could just see a fleeting glimpse of something more.

"Yes." Grace smiled for the first time. "I drew the design and cut the pieces in the metal-working lab at school, and Jonathan soldered the joints for me. But we only made one, so we can't do mass spatial translation yet. And this one, well I know it's only the first attempt, but the field energy's a lot lower than we thought it would be."

"We thought you might help us with that, Mom." added Jonathan. "It wouldn't really be going against the science project rules though, as they don't allow us to get involved with anything to do with high electrical currents."

"Yeah, Mom. Please!" begged Grace.

"Well, I'll see what I can do." Sam replied. "How are you keeping it contained? Magnetic field?"

"Yes. The plate it's hovering over with a one millimetre gap has an electromagnetic loop attached to the other side, powered by a cell." Grace eagerly explained, so happy now that she had established her mother's support. Dad's – well, that would take a little working on, she could see.

Jack stepped from the excited group and made his announcement. "The dog and I are going outside now. We might be gone for some time." He turned to leave, not wanting his kids to catch his expression, the one he had never been able to control: that sinking feeling. This situation had the hallmarks of 'Geeks Running Away with Their Enthusiasm' and while he didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings – least of all these three – he could see all kinds of unwanted attention coming their way if he couldn't head them off. They would be going down in the community as either wizards or loonies, depending on whether there was anything to this everyday multi-dimensional gizmo that their daughter, their wonderful daughter had produced. What was really getting under his skin was his family's instant acceptance of the ordinariness of something that the rest of humanity would think of as miraculous. Or dangerous. Worse still, it could be marking the time when they should introduce their kids to the Great Secret in Cheyenne Mountain. He didn't mind that – in fact, he wanted it. But it would bring his family under the close scrutiny of secret Government organisations whose track record and respect for people were dubious at best, and that was to be avoided until he could be sure of having a reasonable degree of control over the situation.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"Good boy, Hoffman!" he said as the dog bounced excitedly beside him as he set off down the road. Even after six years, he was still amused by Sam's name for him. "Er, Hoffman?" Daniel Jackson had asked. "Kind of unusual name, Sam. I mean….."

"Short for Tales of Hoffman." Sam had smiled back at him. "Because he doesn't often bark." Daniel had groaned, Jack had laughed and Teal'c had needed an explanation of the musical conundrum. One of the great joys for him in their marriage had been her wholehearted conversion to classical music, and she was just as enthusiastic as himself over the passion of Bach and Beethoven, the drama of Wagner and the frivolity of Puccini and Mozart.

"Wait for me!" was a call he hadn't expected, and he turned to find Sam running to catch up. He obliged and she looped her arm through his as they set off again.

"Before you ask, dear, I really didn't get involved in this one." she explained. "But aren't you proud of them?"

"Of course I am. But I might be more proud of them if I understood what the devil they've made." He patted her hand as it rested on his arm. "Go easy on me with the explanation, Sam. You know the consequences if they get into the spotlight for weird science. Even if there's no connection to 'Deep Space Radar Telemetry', certain people will assume that there is and a lot of hard questions are going to be asked."

"Ah! I see now." she responded. "OK, well it goes like this. You understand that our senses tell us that we live in a three-dimensional world – length, breadth and depth, with time as a fourth element: in some ways, a fourth dimension." She saw him nod hesitantly. "Well, think backwards. Picture the two-dimensional world on the surface of a flat sheet of paper. A stationary dot is just a flat spot on the paper. It looks like a dot. But a moving dot, plotted at different times, looks like a continuous line to us three-dimensional people. But to a two-dimensional creature on the paper, it still looks like a dot. He can sense the passage of time but he can't sense a third dimension. There's no depth in his world. He can't see a cube like we can, but he could see a set of straight lines drawn on the paper that would be a projection of a cube into his world."

"Is this like the worm boring through the apple that you told me about back in the early days when you tried to explain wormhole theory?" asked Jack.

"Kind of." said Sam, smiling at his memory powers. "Well, we poor three-D creatures can see a three-D cube, but not a four-D one in its full glory, just a three-D projection of one. A three-D cube moving to different places at different times still looks like a cube to us. But a four-D cube, well, all we can glimpse is something that looks like an ordinary cube but has an additional dimension at right-angles to the other three. The passage of time as it exists in our world does not happen within the confines of the four-D cube, and it would seem if we could look into it as though space was folding in on itself as time stood still."

"Is it dangerous?" Jack's question brought her back to Earth. "Should we go back now and quarantine it?"

"No, I don't think so." said Sam thoughtfully. "At least, not one that small. And not by itself."

"So if they build another one, are they going to breed, or what?" he asked. "And what's the meaning of 'mass spatial displacement'? Sounds like a bad case of 'Beam me up, Scotty!'. Or one false move and the nearest fly starts calling 'Help me! I'm Jeff Goldblum?'"

"Theoretically those things are possible." Sam replied. "I'll need to run the energy audit on the concept, though." Her voice started to trail off as the tumult of possibilities cascaded through her mind. "It's possible that exponential increases in power will be needed the larger the object gets, so we might be no better off than we are now with wormhole generation. But it might just work the other way and we get by on a fraction of…… What?"

She hadn't noticed that Jack had stopped walking, but was standing, looking at her. Hoffman, contrary to his name's derivation, barked his impatience at being kept from patrolling his territory around the village.

"Samantha, dearest." Jack sighed. "My genius family may have come up with the invention to change the world, but just think about things for a moment. Grace is twelve years old, and Jonathan fourteen. Great – they've got your genes for brilliance. But don't you think we owe it to them to let them develop the rest of their personae over the next few years by doing what normal school kids and teenagers do? By all means encourage them, help them with this and just maybe you can get rich by patenting and developing their invention. But let's do it away from the SGC where our lives remain under our own control. There's just no way that Grace can present something like this in public until we're equipped to face the consequences on our own terms."

Sam stared at him, open-mouthed. She realised with a start that she hadn't even considered this aspect yet and yet it was right. Putting people before objectives was so 'Jack', and it was one of the reasons she'd loved him right from the start. She pulled him round and kissed his cheek, much to his surprise and much to the disgust of two teenagers passing on their bicycles.

"Ugh! Gross! Oldies making out in the street!" they heard one say as he sped away, and she laughed.

"Grace is going to be so disappointed with the science project." she said. "But you're right. There's a time and a place for this." She paused as another thought entered her mind. "But now I'm retiring, I can be there for them in all these things. Thanks, Jack."

They walked on, each following their own trains of thought. As they were returning home with one muddy, happy, wet dog, Jack started to smile, causing Sam to raise her eyebrow.

"Maybe making three small cube doohickies wouldn't be such a bad idea." he mused on seeing Sam's interest. "Just think, if you could pass a dime from one to the other, you could make a fortune panhandling with the old 'three cups' trick. You know, where you get people to lay bets on which cup the coin is under after shuffling them around."

"So the world's greatest invention finds its first application!" she cried. "Tell me, Jack. If we ever get rich, what would you spend the money on?"

"Why, wine, women and song, of course. The rest I'd squander."

"Figured."

They walked back down their front path to the prospect of a lifetime of fulfilment. Happiness was of course, a given.

XXXXXXXXXXXX


End file.
